Air filtration devices, also called air scrubbers, are well known and are used to remove impurities, such as particulates, from the surrounding air. Typical air filtration devices include a fan assembly and a filter assembly including one or more filters. Generally, when such an air filtration device is in operation, the fan assembly pulls or pushes air surrounding the air filtration device through the filter assembly, which captures and removes various impurities from the air. The filtered air is then expelled from the air filtration device.
One common use for air filtration devices is to filter the air in indoor or otherwise enclosed construction sites. Various activities that occur in and around such enclosed construction sites cause the air in the construction sites to become filled with impurities such as dust particles. For instance, many indoor construction projects, such as home or business constructions or renovations, involve the installation of drywall. After drywall sheets are hung, drywall joint compound is then applied to fill any imperfections in the drywall (such as to cover the fasteners) and to fill seams between the hung drywall sheets. The drywall compound is then sanded, usually more than once, until it is flush with the drywall. Each instance of sanding causes copious amounts of fine particles of the drywall compound (and the drywall itself) to be expelled into the air, creating clouds of drywall dust in the enclosed space. The drywall dust makes it difficult for workers in the construction site to see what they are doing; puts the workers at risk for various health problems, such as eye, nose, throat, and respiratory tract irritation and difficulty breathing; and eventually falls to the ground, coating the workers, the construction site, and any tools and materials with a layer of drywall dust.
In another example, many indoor construction projects involve the installation of hardwood flooring. After the hardwood flooring is laid, the flooring is sanded, usually more than once. Each instance of sanding causes copious amounts of fine particles of the flooring (i.e., the wood) to be expelled into the air, creating clouds of sawdust in the enclosed space. Similar to the drywall dust described above, the sawdust makes it difficult for workers in the construction site to see what they are doing; puts the workers at risk for various health problems, such as eye, nose, throat, and respiratory tract irritation and difficulty breathing; and eventually falls to the ground, coating the workers, the construction site, and any tools and materials with a layer of sawdust. Other common activities on such constructions sites, such as demolition (e.g., tearing down drywall and ripping up flooring); cutting various materials such as wood, drywall, ceramic, concrete, stone, and plastics; drilling various materials such as wood, drywall, ceramic, concrete, stone, and plastics; and jack hammering concrete and stone, cause similar problems.
Various precautions are used to protect against this kind of particulate-filled air. For example, workers are often required to wear protective eye goggles or glasses to protect their eyes from the particulates and nose and/or to wear face masks to reduce or inhibit the amount of the particulates they breathe in. As noted above, industrial air filtration devices are also typically used to filter the air in such enclosed construction sites to attempt to improve the breathability and safety of the air by removing some or all of these impurities.
While industrial air filtration devices are commonly used in such construction sites, certain known industrial air filtration devices have a variety of disadvantages. Certain known industrial air filtration devices are large, bulky, heavy machines that are not easily transportable to and from a construction site, around a construction site, or between construction sites, especially construction sites that are indoors, oddly shaped, or otherwise enclosed. For instance, such known industrial air filtration devices are a chore to use in the construction or renovation of an office building containing hundreds or even thousands of individual offices. Such known large, bulky, and heavy industrial air filtration devices require workers to cart or otherwise transport the devices around to each office on each floor, which adds time and expense to the project.
Certain known industrial air filtration devices operate at relatively high fan speeds and include filters having relatively small surface areas. For such an industrial air filtration device, the combination of the relatively small filter surface areas, the relatively high fan speed, and the relatively large size of the impurities captured by the filters causes the filters to occlude quickly, which results in decreased performance (explained below) and the filters having to be replaced often.
Many known industrial air filtration devices employ flat front filter assemblies. That is, such known industrial air filtration devices include a filter assembly having one or more rectangular filters along one side of the industrial air filtration device. Such an industrial air filtration device employing a flat front filter assembly may filter air from one side of the industrial air filtration device (i.e., the side on which the filter assembly is located). This limits how quickly and efficiently the industrial air filtration device is able to filter the air surrounding the other sides of the air filtration device.
Many known industrial air filtration devices require users to manually inspect the filters to determine whether the filters should be replaced (i.e., to determine whether the filters are so occluded that they require replacement to maintain efficient performance). This typically requires a user to shut down such an industrial air filtration device and guess as to whether the filter(s) should be replaced. If the user incorrectly determines that a filter should be replaced, money is wasted in purchasing a new filter when the old filter is not completely used up. This also adds to the environmental waste produced by the air filtration device because the old filter is thrown away when it is not completely used up, and the packaging containing the new filter is thrown away when that new filter is not yet needed. If, on the other hand, the user incorrectly determines that a filter should not be replaced, the industrial air filtration device will not effectively filter the air.
Many known industrial air filtration devices include two to three distinct, manually controlled fan speed settings. As the filters of such an industrial air filtration device occlude (i.e., as particulates accumulate on and in the filters), the rate of air flow through the industrial air filtration device decreases. Filters are typically efficient for a narrow target range of rates of air flow through the filters, and if the rate of air flow through the filters falls above or below that target range, the performance of the filters suffers. Thus, in such known industrial air filtration devices, a user must manually change the fan speed as the filters occlude to attempt to maintain the rate of air flow through the filters within that target range. Because the industrial air filtration device only includes two to three distinct fan speed settings, in some instances the user may not be able to increase the fan speed high enough to keep the rate of air flow through the industrial air filtration device within the target range. In other instances, however, the user may increase the fan speed too much, causing the rate of air flow through the industrial air filtration device to fall outside of the target range.
Many known industrial air filtration devices require users to themselves determine how much filtering the surrounding air requires and to manually increase or decrease the fan speed of the industrial air filtration devices accordingly. If the user incorrectly overestimates the speed at which such an industrial air filtration device should be operating, unnecessary electricity costs accrue. If, on the other hand, the user incorrectly underestimates the speed at which the industrial air filtration device should be operating, the user and others in the vicinity will be exposed to (and breathe) air filled with potentially dangerous impurities.
Many known industrial air filtration devices have no way of automatically determining whether the proper filters are installed and/or whether the proper number of filters are installed. This is problematic because the industrial air filtration devices may not function properly to effectively filter the surrounding air if one or more incorrect filters, such as incorrectly sized filters or filters of the wrong class or rating, are installed or if fewer than all of the filters are installed.
Accordingly, there is a need for new and improved air filtration devices that overcome these disadvantages.